What’s in a name?

Open system, system coordinator – what do they mean?

To those who talk a lot about catchments, regulations, and industry, possibly a bit. Butto the wider market – very little. We realised we needed a better title for the ‘Opensystem’ approach in our business plan and set about trying to find one.

We opened the challenge up to our staff, asking them for suggestions on what they thought
the new name for open system could be. Was there a more descriptive title that would work,
better? Could someone think of a clever acronym that would work like our GEM initiative –
Going the Extra Mile? Or was there a name that simply ‘fits’?

More than 40 suggestions were received in less than a week and the variety was huge.

From anacronyms such as SPEW – Solutions Platform for the Environment and Water (any
Harry Potter fans out there noticing a similarity?) to ‘Enable’ (debate over whether that was a
bit ‘Apprenticey’) and playing on traditional water company names like Data Treatment
Works, it was a tough choice.

Some of the name suggestions received. We haven’t shared the best ones – we might usethose in the future!

However, we settled on the descriptive title of Wessex Water Marketplace to keep it simple.

Marketplace featured in a lot of the suggestions received so it makes sense – after all, what
are we looking to do? Work with third parties in the market to see what solutions they can
provide to our outcomes – and longer term, can we partner with others who might enhance
some of our measures to give additional benefits? A true marketplace.

Through engaging our staff in the process of deciding a name, we had people thinking about
what open system meant – and whether they had any outcomes they thought could be
shared. It’s certainly sparked some conversations, so we’ll see more and more being shared
here over the coming months.